Long hours, mandatory overtime as SHASCOM faces staffing shortage

Andreas Fuhrmann/Record SearchlightSHASCOM Public Safety Dispatchers Donna Hunter and Mike Fitzsimmons talk about a 911 call Tuesday at the center. The agency is understaffed and have about 2,200 hours of monthly overtime to be picked up by 21 staffers and 5 supervisors.

Andreas Fuhrmann/Record Searchlight SHASCOM Public Safety Dispatcher Stacy Miller works with the Redding Police Department Tuesday at the center. The agency is understaffed and has about 2,200 hours of monthly overtime to be picked up by 21 staffers and five supervisors. (Photo: Andreas Fuhrmann)

Stacy Miller spends at least 12 hours per day at work splitting her attention among six different computer screens and a phone.

As one of a handful of dispatchers working a given shift at the Shasta Area Safety Communications Agency, Miller spends her time taking 911 calls, routing them to Redding police officers, conducting follow-up calls and even more.

It's a fast moving environment that could see Miller shifting from a conversation with her coworker quickly to a call about a wreck, robbery, or in the case of a shooting in Redding on Monday, calls from several people reporting the same incident.

'You constantly just have to be alert and multitask,' said Miller, who's approaching two decades on the job.

Miller is taking a vacation in early June but will face 44 hours of mandatory overtime for the month on top of her fulltime schedule. And she's not alone.

SHASCOM is paying an average of 52 hours of overtime to each worker in June to meet the demand, Director James Divis said. The agency has 10 vacant positions out of 34 total for the agency.

In the fiscal year ending June, SHASCOM will pay an estimated $425,000 in overtime, well over the $300,000 budgeted by the agency, Divis said. The agency — funded by Redding, Anderson, Shasta County, American Medical Response, Mercy Medical Center and the state — can afford the overage because it isn't spending that money on employee salaries and benefits, he said.

The problem is nothing new for SHASCOM, which has struggled for years to find candidates who can pass rigorous screening required to work for the agency.

It's not even a local problem. Agencies from as near as Oakland to as far away as southern Florida in recent years have all reported staffing shortages, according to news reports from those areas.

'It's an industry-wide issue,' Divis said.

Since becoming SHASCOM director two years ago, Divis has changed the way the agency recruits and lightened at least one of the requirements for applicants. Formerly, potential applicants have had to be drug-free for as long as three years.

Divis said he's shortened that to a year for marijuana use but even that poses challenges to finding younger recruits, who must also pass a credit check, lie detector test and psychological examination, he said.

The high standards are in place because dispatchers can deal with sensitive information and life-or-death situations, Divis said.

'It's one of those jobs — being a 911 dispatcher — that you don't have the luxury of working at 80 percent. You've got to be perfect all the time because people's lives depend on that,' he said.

Pay for dispatchers ranges from $15 to $31.74 an hour, depending on experience and role.

Redding Fire Chief Gerry Gray said SHASCOM fields nearly all of the annual calls — more than 13,000 in 2015 alone — for firefighters in Redding.

'SHASCOM remains a critical component of the public safety team in Redding and Shasta County,' Gray said.

Dispatchers also coordinate the movement of law enforcement and as such are tasked with officers' safety, Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko said.

'The job that they do is critical to the job that we do,' Bosenko said.

Divis said testing for applicants has also changed. Applicants now take a computerized test, undergo an oral board interview, an interview with a manager and begin a background check in a single day instead of repeated visits to the agency.

That process has shortened the time to get someone through the hiring process from more than six months to about two, Divis said.

Divis is optimistic about a pool of applicants that could quickly fill out the ranks of the agency. But even then, he said, SHASCOM will still face overtime costs for more experienced dispatchers to train the new hires.

And, even with time-based retention bonuses that could earn longtime dispatchers thousands in a single year, there's no guarantee a new hire won't burn out.

'The shift work, long hours, mandatory overtime and nature of the job itself result in most people leaving shortly after being hired,' Divis said.

For Miller and others, it can be challenging to leave some of the more upsetting calls at the office. She goes to the gym after her 12-hour shift to unwind.

The job affects her most when she's unable to spend as much as time with her family as she'd like. Miller has a 13-year-old son living at home and another in his 20s who lives out of the house, she said.

Miller several months in advance had to request a day off to attend her son's middle school graduation, she said.

And while the overtime helped Miller pay for her upcoming family vacation, she'd gladly accept the extra help at work, she said.

'(The overtime) doesn't by any means mean that I want it to be alleviated so I can spend more time with my family,' Miller said.